


Tumblr Ficlets 2018

by ineswrites



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Action, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, Bad Pick-Up Lines, Breathplay, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Cockblocking, Diary/Journal, Domestic Violence, HYDRA Trash Party, Halloween, Hate Sex, Hospitals, Hypothermia, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Jealousy, M/M, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Murder, Muteness, Naked Cuddling, Painful Sex, Sadism, Self-Hatred, Survival, Vampire!Jack, Werewolf!Brock, anxiety attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-04-17 20:44:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14197371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineswrites/pseuds/ineswrites
Summary: "I'm gonna do you like I'd do the dishes,” Jack purred in his ear. His breath smelled of cheap vodka.Normally, Brock would top this terrible, terrible pickup line with an even more cringeworthy one. It was a little game they had. But that night, he was angry, tired, not in the mood, and to top it all off, that line was really badly timed.





	1. Stuck Doing the Dishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm gonna do you like I'd do the dishes,” Jack purred in his ear. His breath smelled of cheap vodka.  
> Normally, Brock would top this terrible, terrible pickup line with an even more cringeworthy one. It was a little game they had. But that night, he was angry, tired, not in the mood, and to top it all off, that line was really badly timed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UnderTheFridge sent me this humorous exchange:
> 
> Hydra Husbands: "I'm gonna do you like I'd do the dishes." "So by that d'you mean never, or really fuckin' badly?" *fight starts*
> 
> So I responded with this, because I'm evil.

Brock Rumlow wasn’t having a good day. Scratch that; he wasn’t having a good week. Good thing it was ending. He returned home with an intention to maybe have a bite of something before dropping on the bed and not getting up for the next twenty-four hours.

He wasn’t expecting his apartment to be pristine; he knew Jack was a slob, and if it wasn’t for Brock, he’d live in a dump. But he expected it to be… well, not a dump.

The first thing that hit him when he opened the door was the smell – the awful old smell of cigarette smoke, that told him Jack hadn’t smoked outside since Brock left on the mission. Which was almost a week ago. There _was_ smoke hanging in the air, filling his lungs and making his eyes sting. Did Jack even air out at least once?

The living room was empty, but Brock could hear voices and chuckles coming from the kitchen. He frowned. Did Jack invite someone over?

His blood ran cold when he stood in the kitchen door and saw two people sitting at the table. The smoke was even more dense here, but the glint of a man’s left arm was unmistakable. Apparently, while he was “taking care of an inconvenience” as Pierce nicely put it, Jack was put on a babysitting duty. But it wasn’t just the sight of the Asset that unnerved him, but also the cigarette he was holding between his fingers and the opened bottle of vodka set on the table beside a deck of cards. Brock hoped the clear liquid in what looked like the Asset’s glass wasn’t in fact vodka, or they were both fucking dead.

“What the fuck?”

It wasn’t the only question rattling in his head, but definitely the loudest one.

Jack looked up. “Brock!” he said with a note of surprise and glanced at the clock like he really didn’t expect him to be back so soon, despite the day of his return being marked on their fucking calendar. “Look who was thawed out this week.” He rested his hand on the Asset’s flesh one.

Brock barely managed to contain the rage bubbling beneath his skin. He was too tired to deal with this shit. They’d discuss it tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow. Provided they lived to see it.

“Is there anything to eat?” he asked, already making his way towards the fridge. Another smell reached his nose when he approached the sink; the reek of rotten food and stale water. He leaned in, but not too close. There was a stack of dishes set in dirty water, bits of days old food floating on the surface. Judging by the amount, Jack must have been collecting them since day one. Brock pulled back. He lost his appetite.

Jack took the cigarette from between the Asset’s fingers and put it out in an ashtray. “Go lie down on the couch.”

The Asset pouted. “I’m not sleepy.”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

Brock didn’t want to stay and listen. He didn’t even have enough energy to comment on the dishes. He walked out, going straight for the bedroom. He could only hope that Jack would come to his senses and their home would be in a slightly better state when he woke up. He really didn’t want to clean all that by himself. He didn’t even want to _think_ in what state the bathroom was.

He was half undressed when he heard footsteps approaching. He didn’t turn around to face Jack, didn’t acknowledge his presence in any way. Undeterred, Jack wrapped one arm around Brock’s waist, pressing himself from behind. He leaned down and nipped at Brock’s earlobe. Cute, how he pretended to be longing and horny while Brock knew all too well what he was engaging in with the Asset while he was gone.

"I'm gonna do you like I'd do the dishes,” Jack purred in his ear. His breath smelled of cheap vodka.

Normally, Brock would top this terrible, terrible pickup line with an even more cringeworthy one. It was a little game they had. But that night, he was angry, tired, not in the mood, and to top it all off, that line was really badly timed.

“So by that d'you mean never, or really fuckin' badly?" he snapped.

Jack stopped teasing his earlobe with his teeth, but his hold on him never faltered.

“Are you seriously angry because of some stupid dishes?”

If it was just the dishes, Brock would go on a long rant about it and let it go. The dishes were on the very bottom of the list of things that made him mad.

“I’m angry because of you, asshole,” he snarled, pushing at Jack’s arm. “Lemme go.”

“Aww, what did I do?” Jack buried his face in Brock’s neck, licking the skin, and made no attempt whatsoever at letting Brock go.

He had very poor social skills, and his level of empathy was too low for it to be normal. He was perpetually confused by other humans’ behavior, especially when emotions were involved. Brock knew and accepted that. But after five years of being together, he expected Jack to be able to read at least him. To know when to back off.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Brock grumbled, pushing Jack’s face away.

“I’ll make it up to you.”

Jack attacked the other side of his neck. His free hand crawled up his chest to rub his nipple. Scowling, Brock grabbed his wrist and clenched hard to stop him.

“Jack, really. I’m not in the mood.”

“I’ll put you in the mood,” Jack said in a heated voice.

His free hand went for Brock’s belt. Brock got tired of saying no. He elbowed Jack in the stomach, and when he stumbled back, he turned to knee him in the same place for a good measure.

“I said no,” he snarled through gritted teeth.

“ _Why?_ ” Jack spluttered, bent over with his arms around his stomach.

Brock regarded him coldly with his hands resting on his hips. This should have been enough. He was under no obligation to explain himself.

“I’m tired and you’re a fuckin’ prick, that’s why.” He turned away and undid his pants. “You sleep on the couch tonight.”

“The Asset sleeps there.”

“Since when that’s a problem for you?!”

“Really, Brock?” Jack asked after a beat of silence. Brock peered over his shoulder as he was pushing down his pants; Jack regained his composure and was now standing straight with his arms crossed on his chest. “I’m not fucking the Asset, how many times do I have to tell you that?”

Of course, he couldn’t get it in his head that Brock wasn’t going to fuck him, but he figured out the real reason of his anger after just a hint. Typical.

Brock snorted. “Maybe I’d believe you if I didn’t fuckin’ walk in on you with his face between your legs!”

“That was just one time! You were gone for two weeks, what was I supposed to do?”

And he seriously thought that was a good fucking excuse.

“I don’t know, maybe fuckin’ keep it in your pants!”

“We’ve been over this.” Jack sighed, dropping his arms. “I haven’t touched him since. Don’t be so jealous now, it’s not cute anymore.”

Jealous… Yes, he was, a bit. But Jack couldn’t start a relationship with the Asset even if he wanted to. Brock knew he was Jack’s first choice, always. Jealousy had very little to do with that. It was more about people thinking they were entitled to things just because they held power over somebody. Brock had thought Jack was better than that. Seeing the Asset with him was a reminder of how sorely wrong he had been.

“I ain’t jealous.” Brock shrugged. He folded his pants and dropped them on a chair.

“Well, then. I’ll squeeze in with the Asset.”

“No.” The word was out of his lips before he knew it. His hand reached out and closed on Jack’s wrist. “You sleep with me. Only sleep, Rollins.” The use of his last name was a tell for Jack that he wasn’t playing coy, that he meant it. “You try anything funny, you end up on the floor.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack mumbled with defeat.

Brock held back a smirk. “And you’re gonna do those fuckin’ dishes.”

Jack sighed again. “Yes, sir,” he repeated.


	2. I Almost Lost You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They say you have memory issues.” The tall man is dressed in black tac gear, oddly soothing after all the white coats.  
> “Who are you?” Brock asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kalika_999 asked for “I almost lost you” kiss & Forbidden kiss from [this prompt list](https://quillofchoice.tumblr.com/post/171731978799/prompt-list).

A dark spot dances in his sight, covering the face of the man hovering over him after he switches off his little flashlight.

“How do you feel?” he asks, and Brock struggles to match the voice to a familiar face.

“Commander?” the man prompts when Brock doesn’t respond, because as stupid as that sounds, he’s not sure how he feels. “Do you know who I am? Do you remember my name?”

Brock blinks a few times; there’s still this goddamn dark spot on the man’s face. The man that he’s apparently supposed to know, but there’s nothing familiar about him.

“No,” he replies, his stomach twisting with unease.

“What’s your name?”

“Brock Rumlow.”

“What day is it?”

Day…

“Start from the year.”

“2007?” The whole questioning is the reason why he’s unsure. But it must be 2007.

It must be.

The man nods, and Brock breathes a little easier.

“Month?”

“March.”

It _must be_ March. There’s no other option.

The man nods again with a smile that soothes him. It’s just standard questioning. There’s a dull pain pulsing inside his head – he must have suffered a head injury and lost a few hours, and they’re just checking on him. And maybe it’s not so weird he doesn’t recognize this guy, he must be from the medical team and Brock doesn’t remember at least half of them.

“Day?”

That requires a little more consideration. He thinks back to the last thing he remembers from before he blacked out. He was inside a quinjet. Shit, they must have crashed.

“What about my team?” he asks.

“You were on a solo mission, Commander Rumlow. Can you tell me what day is it?”

A solo mission. Right. Now he remembers. It was early morning when he was getting on the quinjet, and the room he’s currently in is dimly lit – it must be evening, but still the same day.

“Tuesday the thirteenth.”

The man doesn’t correct him but he doesn’t nod either, and Brock feels the muscles in his shoulders and legs tense again.

“Who do you serve?”

Ah, shit.

“SHIELD,” he replies, because he can’t hail Hydra to the man he doesn’t know, even if the question itself implies they serve the same organization.

The man smiles again but doesn’t nod. “Can you tell me what do you do for SHIELD?”

“I’m the commander of STRIKE.”

The man walks away, and a woman shows up in his peripheral vision. She introduces herself with a name that fleets his mind, tells him she’s from the medical team, just like he suspected, and promises to lead him safely to the point of extraction.

He pulls himself up from the thing he’s been lounging on. From the glimpses of it he catches, it looks like some sort of medical equipment, which makes sense. Feeling more confident, he follows the kindly smiling woman out of wherever the hell they are.

 

*

 

His mind feels clearer when he returns to the Triskelion – it’s like a heavy fog has been surrounding it, and now it’s lifted – but the fuss that happens around him in the medical bay is worrying. He’s being asked questions while someone else gives him a checkup, and it’s all very standard, he’s been through it a thousand times, but there’s something off about it. Maybe the fresh bruises covering his body that he has no idea how he got.

“Do you know what day is it?” A doctor asks, or maybe he’s a nurse, hell if Brock knows how to distinguish one from another.

“Tuesday,” Brock grumbles.

The woman checking his elbow joints doesn’t falter, but the silence following his answer tells him he’s wrong.

Damn this stupid bastard for not correcting him, whoever he was.

“It’s Thursday, sir,” the man says and there’s a sinking feeling in Brock’s stomach.

He was supposed to return on Thursday. Which means he did finish his mission. He just doesn’t remember it. Well, damn, how’s he supposed to give report now?

He doesn’t even remember what the mission was exactly.

“Is your most recent memory from the last Tuesday?”

“Getting on the quinjet on Tuesday morning, yes.”

Another moment of worrying silence; this time the woman drops his arm and looks over her shoulder at her colleague. Brock barely stops himself from nipping at the dead skin on his lips.

“Is March the thirteenth the last day you remember?”

Brock swallows thickly. “Yes.”

“That was ten days ago.”

Brock’s blood runs cold, and he clenches his thighs with suddenly clammy hands. He refuses to look at either of the doctors even though he can feel their stares on him.

The woman inserts a cannula into a vein on his hand and attaches a drip; paracetamol, like he doesn’t have a shit-ton of that at home. Then both doctors exit the room, leaving him sitting on the couch by himself.

He watches the clear substance drip, trying not to freak out at the fact that apparently he went missing after (or during) an op, something freaky happened to him judging by the purple marks on his skin, and he doesn’t remember any of it. A dark figure shows up in the door and he welcomes the distraction.

“They say you have memory issues.” The tall man is dressed in black tac gear, oddly soothing after all the white coats.

“Who are you?” Brock asks.

The newcomer’s face twitches. He looks like all his fears just came true.

Brock smirks.

“Sonofabitch,” Jack snarls, crossing the distance between them in a couple of strides.

Expecting a swing to the face, Brock tries to duck, but Jack has this advantage that he’s not attached to a drip. But there’s no fist connecting with Brock’s cheek; instead, Jack grabs his face, yanks it up, and a hot mouth covers Brock’s own. Jack kisses him with unyielding force and Brock lets his eyes flutter shut for a few seconds as Jack licks into his mouth before he pushes him away with a hand on his chest. Nobody at SHIELD knows about them and it’s in their best interest to remain undiscovered.

“I thought I lost you,” Jack mutters against his mouth. “They didn’t let me lead a second rescue mission.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Brock quips, not letting his unease the whole situation has caused show.

“You better be fucking sorry, I already sent party invitations.” Jack jabs him in the ribs and Brock has to hold back a wince because he hit one of the bruises. “There was gonna be champagne, strippers and a chocolate fountain.”

He straightens up and inspects the drip, then walks up to the desk and looks over the papers scattered there, looking for Brock’s health card. He reminds Brock of an overprotective mother so much he rolls his eyes.

“I wouldn’t forget you,” he adds matter-of-factly. “Your face will haunt me for eternity.”

“It better,” Jack replies wryly. “I didn’t get it scarred for nothing.”


	3. Hiding From the Bad Guys (caproll)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s how we do it at SHIELD,” Rollins explains in response to Steve’s wide-eyed, wary gaze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SplinterCell asked for "Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys" with Caproll from the same prompt list.

Out of all the things in 21st century, work feels the most familiar. The tac suit, the shield, the punching and the naked male bodies.

The dress suit doesn’t feel familiar, despite the navy blue. Neither does the casino. It’s not the regular job where he charges in shield-first; he feels like a character from one of those Mission Impossible movies, and now there’s the theme song stuck in his head.

It crosses his mind that it should be Natasha here; she’d feel right at home among the crowd, and poker and roulette tables, holding a drink and smiling sweetly at men. She’d be a perfect match for Rollins, who’s wearing his dark gray dress jacket and black button-down like a second skin, instead of obsessively adjusting his sleeves like Steve does. But Natasha wasn’t on base, so here he is, looking for winning some money with a friend, definitely not scanning the crowd for a known arms dealer.

“Relax,” Rollins murmurs without even looking at him.

Steve’s body gives a twitch like it always does whenever Rollins speaks up, because it startles him every single time (about four times in total). Out of all his teammates, Rollins is the only one that remains a mystery, a puzzle waiting to be cracked. It makes him nervous. He’s never liked puzzles.

“They know you’re here,” Rumlow’s rough voice sounds in their ears. “It’s a trap. Get outta there.”

Steve leans towards Rollins to make it look like he’s talking to him. “I could—”

“I know you could, Cap,” Rumlow interrupts. “But you’re in a place full of civilians. Just get out before they spot you. They know who to look for.” And before Steve tries to argue, “I know you outrank me but these are actually Fury’s orders, I’m only passing along.”

Rollins is looking at him like at a child who only started playing the cool kids’ game and has trouble getting the rules.

“Copy,” he says.

It should be Natasha here.

Over Rollins’ shoulder, he spots a tall, beefy man, who elbows another, equally big, and nods their way.

Rollins narrows his eyes. “They’re behind me, aren’t they?”

“The door,” Steve mutters.

He turns on his heel and goes for the exit as fast as he can without actually running. Rollins falls in step beside him.

“Two on our four, two on seven. Go straight to the car, no need to make this a mess.”

Steve doesn’t comment on Rollins ordering him around. This is not the time. They can discuss it later.

They’re practically running when they reach the door, Steve hitting it with his shoulder so hard it almost falls out of its hinges as it flies open. He feels rather than hears Rollins follow him, his ears straining to pick up the footsteps of the thugs chasing them among all the other. Their car is parked close to the entrance, a regular Toyota Camry rather than the SHIELD brand. Steve opens it, gets behind the wheel and—

—and he freezes.

Two men stand at the casino door, with their hands on uncovered holsters. They’re scanning the street, about to spot them, and even if he and Rollins manage to escape an open fire, they’ll be in for a car chase which will result in even more of a mess.

Rollins’ cologne hits his nose – sandalwood based with ginger undertones – and suddenly he’s hyperaware of his teammate’s closeness. Rollins is leaning on the open car door, his face on the same level as Steve’s. One big hand rests on the back of Steve’s head.

“That’s how we do it at SHIELD,” Rollins explains in response to Steve’s wide-eyed, wary gaze.

Steve would imagine Rollins’ kiss to be forceful and rough. His grip on Steve would be strong enough to leave bruises even on a super soldier, and there’d be far more teeth involved than necessary.

Not that he’s wondered.

But Rollins’ hand is gentle on the back of Steve’s head, and there are no teeth. No tongue, either. The kiss is surprisingly soft, almost chaste, even though Rollins does push forward until Steve hits the backrest. He gasps when they break apart, staring at Rollins’ face in a daze.

Rollins’ raises an eyebrow. “Are they still there?” He sounds impatient.

Steve mentally scolds himself for forgetting they’re on a run from the bad guys and looks over Rollins’ shoulder. Nobody’s standing at the entrance to the casino, and the goons following them are nowhere in sight.

“They’re gone.”

Rollins straightens up and shuts the car door, muttering something under his breath. It’s when Steve starts up the engine that his brain belatedly analyzes the words: “Brock’s gonna be so pissed.”

“What?” he asks, because he’s not entirely sure that’s what he heard.

Rollins barely glances at him from the passenger seat. “I didn’t say anything.”


	4. Cockblock Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack’s big beautiful hands are soaked in blood, and he sends the drops in the air every time he raises the knife just to bury it in the man’s torso again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [causticausality](https://causticausality.tumblr.com/) asked for "Moving Around While Kissing, Stumbling Over Things, Pushing Each Other Back Against The Wall/Onto The Bed" from the same prompt list.

The Asset tries the door, but it won’t open.

“Here,” Brock says, pulling out a key.

The Asset takes a step back and kicks the door open. He walks inside the safehouse without a second glance at his handlers behind him. Brock puts the key back in his pocket; with the lock broken, it’s useless now.

“He’s a dick to doors like Cap,” Jack mutters, closing the door behind them.

Brock elbows him in the ribs. “You ain’t supposed to use that word around him.”

“It won’t be my fault if he goes apeshit, it’s the machine that doesn’t work properly.”

“Too bad you’ll be too dead to argue that.”

They turn to the Asset who’s studying the windows. They exchange glances. The Asset isn’t usually this alert after they’re done with a mission.

“Is this acceptable?” Brock mocks, but he’s holding his breath as he waits for the answer.

After a moment of hesitation, the Asset steps forward. Brock sighs in relief and follows him into a spacious room. He drops his backpack on the floor.

“Hey, do you have any of those little bottles of Jack you took last time?”

“You’ve been drinking for the past week,” Jack grumbles, dropping his own gear on a table.

“Your point being?”

“I’m not contributing to your addiction.”

Brock scoffs. “I ain’t addicted.”

“Not yet.” Jack smiles lewdly at him. “I can make you a bottle of Jack, though. Or would you rather drink straight from the tap?”

Brock scowls. “You’re gross.”

If Jack has a comeback to that, he never learns. First, they hear glass breaking, then a swish of a bullet missing Jack’s head by an inch.

“They followed us,” Jack breathes as they drop to the ground.

The Asset opens one of the windows and jumps outside, hopefully in order to pursuit the shooter.

“Yeah, no shit.” Brock pushes Jack towards the door when another bullet hits the floor. “Move out!”

They run outside half bent and stop right by the door with their backs against the wall. Brock mentally takes stock of their weapons. He has a handgun and a stun baton, but Jack’s unarmed; he left everything on the table. Brock hands him the stun baton.

Another bullet sends chunks of drywall flying between their heads. Brock pushes Jack round the corner.

“Amateurs,” he mutters.

“Thank God they’re amateurs,” Jack shoots back. “Can you see any of them?”

Brock peeks out from round the corner and scans the house across the street. Sure enough, there’s a glint of sunlight on gray metal.

“Second floor, third window on the left,” he says.

Without a sniper rifle, there’s no way he can hit the bastard. He turns back to Jack.

“We circle to the backdoor, get inside, get rifles and shoot every fucker in sight.”

Once inside, Jack grabs the Asset’s Barrett M82 and dives back out the door, leaving Brock with just their dismantled M16A4s.

“Ja—!” Brock cuts himself off and sighs.

Jack always jumps head-first into the action; nothing makes him happier than shooting at some schmucks. Brock rolls his eyes, takes his backpack and strides to the front side windows. He kneels down and opens the backpack.

The kitchen floor creaks and he freezes, straining his ears. After a moment of deafening silence, soft footsteps resound, approaching him from behind.

“Asset?” he asks in the lightest whisper. If it’s the Asset, he’ll hear.

But there’s no response. Slowly, he unsnaps his holster. A gun is cocked behind him, much closer than he anticipated.

“Hands up.” The male voice is sharp and even like a virgin blade; the snipers might’ve been amateurs, but this guy isn’t.

Brock slowly raises his hands. The guy approaches him, his footsteps heavy as he’s no longer trying to be stealthy. He bends down to take the gun from Brock’s holster. If Brock still had his stun baton, he could strike back. Alas, he stays still when a cold hard muzzle presses to the back of his head.

“Get up,” the man barks. “Slowly.”

So they want him alive. On one hand, it gives him time to be rescued, or get out himself, if he gets a chance. But if he doesn’t… He’s not looking forward to the torture they have planned for him.

He gets up, and the man leads him towards the front door with a big hand on his shoulder. As they walk, Brock can sense that the guy’s taller than him, about three inches.

The sounds of glass breaking and a bullet cutting through the air feel like a déjà vu, but a crack of fractured bones followed by a howl quickly end the sensation. The man’s gun clatters to the ground.

Another two bullets break through the glass just as Brock spins around. Hit in the chest, the tall man stumbles back and to the ground; he has a black ski mask on. Seeing his chance, Brock dives for the gun he dropped. In the next moment he has to cover his face from the glass shards a man jumping in through the broken window sends flying. Brock aims the gun at him, but immediately drops it – it’s Jack.

He reminds Brock of the Asset in the way he struts towards the body on the ground and throws the Barrett to the side. The masked man props himself up on his elbows, but he’s weakened from the pain and dazed from hitting his head on the floor. He’s no match for Jack who just witnessed him fuck with what’s his and entered a killer mode.

Jack straddles the man’s hips and pulls out a knife. Brock swears softly. If he knew Jack carried that hidden in his boot, he wouldn’t have given him his stun baton and this would be over minutes ago. But he doesn’t move from his position on the ground, doesn’t say anything, just attentively watches as Jack cuts the man’s bulletproof vest open and stabs him.

And stabs him again.

Jack’s big beautiful hands are soaked in blood, and he sends the drops in the air every time he raises the knife just to bury it in the man’s torso again. He keeps stabbing until the pained grunts falling off the man’s lips die out and all that Brock hears are the wet sounds of the blade cutting through the bloodied meat.

Jack leans back with a sigh. He turns his head, and it’s incredible how easily the furious frown on his face smooths out, how swiftly the murderous glint in his eyes goes out when he looks at Brock. He gets up, and Brock also scrambles to his feet.

“Are you alright?” Jack places his bloodied hands on Brock’s elbows. There are red splatters on his right cheek.

Brock twists his hands into Jack’s shirt and shoves him up against the wall, hating that he needs to stand on his toes to reach his lips. Jack kisses him hard, and soon Brock’s shoved back and pinned against the door with Jack’s entire body. The broken door doesn’t hold, and they stumble outside, but regain balance, Jack pressing him close with a strong arm around his waist. Brock pushes him back inside, and they blindly navigate towards the living room, the glass crunching under their boots. Jack accidentally nips his lip when he trips over the dead body and Brock groans into his mouth, impatient hands opening his belt. He feels Jack smile against his lips a second before his back hits the wall.

“You’re thirsty for that Jack after all, huh?” Jack purrs, the dangerous glint back in his eyes.

Brock doesn’t grace that with an answer. “Bedroom,” he commands.

“Where the fuck is a bedroom in this house?”

Brock pushes him back, and he stumbles over the corpse’s hand. Brock stomps on the hand on his way to the bedroom, the bones grinding pleasantly under his boot.

“Now they’re gonna have a boot print, you idiot.” Jack pulls him close by his t-shirt.

“Yeah, what they’re gonna do with it, arrest me?” Brock breathes against Jack’s mouth and catches it in another hungry kiss.

They make it to the bedroom not without scraping their elbows against the wooden door and the handle catching on Brock’s vest. Brock’s calves hit the bed and he falls with Jack on top of him, his head landing on something hard. His lips are burning by the time Jack breaks the kiss to lick and bite on his neck. He opens his eyes.

Empty blue eyes stare back at him from above a half-face mask.

Brock’s blood runs cold. “Jack,” he breathes.

Jack grunts, focused on unfastening Brock’s vest rather than what is going on around them.

“Jack!”

Picking up on the urgency in Brock’s voice, Jack looks up. It takes a second for the sight of Brock lying with his head in the Asset’s lap to sink in. Then he bursts into laughter.

“Very funny, asshole! Get off me!” Brock tries to push him off.

When he’s sitting up and more or less collected, with Jack still shaking with quiet laughter beside him, he shoots the Asset a deprecating look.

“What’re you doing here?”

The Asset silently raises a severed head. Brock stares at it, bemused.

“Cool,” he manages out. “Uh, good job.”

“We can’t stay, anyway,” Jack says, amusement lingering in his voice. He gets up and buckles his belt. “They know where to look for us. Besides,  _someone_  broke the door.”


	5. Masks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brock was looking at him with determination as he pulled him into an I’m-sorry kiss. Jack was well acquainted with those; a soft press of lips, a peck really, meant to placate him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked for "Starting With A Kiss Meant To Be Gentle, Ending Up In Passion" from the same prompt list.

The Master of Masks, Jack sometimes called him, but never to his face, never aloud. People looked at him, never even suspecting it wasn’t his true face they were seeing. It made it easy for them to give him labels. Badass. Asshole. Bully. A tyrant even, by some.

But Jack had seen what was hidden underneath. He saw the fear of looking death in the eye. The grief of losing a man. The terror that came after the realization he accidently killed a child.

The regret of living the kind of life he did.

Jack had seen what was underneath, and so he could tell when the mask was on. It looked unnatural; too stoic, too empty. So different from his expressive face.

Brock wasn’t bothering to put the mask on when it was just him and Jack for a while now, so when Jack looked at him and was met with an impenetrable wall, it both shocked and worried him. Brock was so obviously hiding something from him, and for the first time in a while, Jack didn’t know what was going on inside his head.

“Too tired to move, old man?” he quipped when Brock didn’t move from his place on the couch after Jack placed their dinner on the table.

Brock scoffed. “Have Captain America throw you into the ceiling and we’ll talk.”

“Somehow it’s my face looking worse than yours.”

“Like that’s anything new.”

Jack raised the corner of his mouth in a half-smile. He took a plate and the silverware and carried them to Brock who straightened up in his seat. He balanced the plate on his thigh and rested the fork on the chicken breast, but he was reluctant to start eating. The first crack in the mask showed and Jack didn’t like what he saw peeking through.

“Not hungry?”

Brock placed the plate on the coffee table and got up. “I’m going to bed.”

Jack sighed. “Why don’t we talk anymore?”

Brock stopped in his tracks and turned his head to look at him. “Was I talking to myself for the past few minutes?”

“You call that a talk?”

“It wasn’t?”

Jack studied his face, the crack he saw a moment ago covered with the defensive stance. “I’m not attacking you. I’m your ally, not enemy.”

Brock faced him fully, his arms folding on his chest. “Are you?”

“How can you ask that?” Jack frowned; he didn’t spend years putting his life on the line for Brock for him to just brush it off as nothing. “How many bullets have I taken for you?”

“Yeah, but was it really for me? Or for Hydra?”

“What does Hydra have to do with anything?!”

Another crack in Brock’s mask showed and Jack realized Hydra had _everything_ to do with this. All the hostility left him; he didn’t wish to fight but to understand.

“Insight was moved for tomorrow, is that it? Is that what you have a problem with?” The whole pieces of the mask were falling off now. “I thought you wanted this.”

“I do.” But Brock didn’t put his mask back on in time, and the lie was so obvious it grated on Jack’s ears. He shook his head, looking away; he heard that, too. “I did,” he corrected himself, and that was the truth. “Before this whole mess. It was moved because it’s either now or never, but the world is not ready for this. And if you think Cap won’t show up to fucking _save the day_ , then you’re fucking naïve.”

“Pierce—”

“He’ll what?!” Brock snapped. “What will he do?! You think he has any fucking idea of what he’s doing? He’s going in circles like a bug trapped in a jar. And do you know who matters the least in this whole mess? _Us._ We’re… we’re fucking _minions_ , Jack. Nobody cares about those. Best case scenario – we die.”

The mask fell, revealing what Brock was hiding for this whole time. And it was painful to look at, how terrified and hopeless he was.

Jack advanced on him but Brock immediately stepped back, his right hand twitching as if he wanted to grab a weapon he didn’t have.

“What are you doing?” he asked warily.

Jack froze. He should’ve gotten used to Brock finding yet a new way to hurt him, but not trusting him when Jack did literally nothing to deserve it was something he never expected to happen. He stood there, silent, stunned by Brock’s reaction until both their phones buzzed at the same time. It could mean only one thing. Jack pulled his out of his pocket and read the text.

“They found Cap.”

He went to the hallway, throwing a passing glance at his dinner going cold; he was hungry when they came home but now he didn’t care if it ended up in trash. He put on his boots and jacket, hearing Brock move behind him. He was unlocking the door when Brock grabbed his arm and tugged. Jack looked at him reluctantly, unsure if he wanted to see what was there.

Brock was looking at him with determination as he pulled him into an I’m-sorry kiss. Jack was well acquainted with those; a soft press of lips, a peck really, meant to placate him. He pulled away; he wasn’t mad. He could never get mad at Brock. He was just sad that out of all the things he could be scared of, Brock chose to be scared of him.

But Brock didn’t let go; his fingers curled around the back of Jack’s neck as he deepened the kiss. He pressed on until Jack’s back hit the door, licked his lips until Jack let him in. He put everything in that kiss; all his fear and regret, the anger and disappointment in the project he worked so hard for and was doomed to fail, finally the avid pleading, though for what, Jack wasn’t sure. Forgiveness, perhaps; and yes, that was the apology worth accepting.

It was Jack who broke the kiss, and when he did, Brock’s mask was back in place.

“No time for this now,” Jack said. “We’ll continue talking when we get back.”

Brock smirked. “Oh, so _that’s_ a talk for you.” He nodded in a mocking understanding. “Shoulda known that.”

“Far more informative than you insulting me.”

“What, that about your face? Wasn’t insulting ya, just said the truth.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Why am I dating an asshole?”

“‘Cause this asshole’s good in bed.” Brock unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Oh, I’m sorry. At _talking._ ”


	6. How To Save a Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First they fought for their lives in the freezing river, now out there in the cold. There was nothing but snow for miles. They lost all their gear, the comms, the relays, it’d be a while until somebody found them. Jack was right – they were dying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [thymianne](https://thymianne.tumblr.com/) asked for "Kisses Where One Person Is Sitting In The Other’s Lap" from the same prompt list.

Brock was certain that if he touched his butt, it’d be stiff with frost. He sure hoped he wouldn’t have to have it amputated. He was quite attached to it.

He took another sluggish step, his frozen clothes cracking with every move. His leg sank in the snow up to his knee. His hair felt stiff – must have been frosted like Jack’s eyelashes and stubble.

He didn’t know how long they were walking – he’d swear it had been hours since he pulled Jack out of the river, but might’ve as well been minutes. At least he didn’t hear the flow of water anymore, but there was a big chance the whistling of the wind just drowned it out. He was too afraid to look over his shoulder to check; besides, it felt like an unnecessary effort.

They were both trembling violently under Brock’s coat they were forced to share; Jack’s was wet and hanging uselessly from Brock’s forearm. Jack was hunched, tucked under Brock’s arm. He was walking even slower, and Brock was sure that if he wasn’t pushing him forth, he’d stop moving altogether. Which wasn’t good. Moving was what kept them alive.

Jack stumbled and fell to his knees, sinking in the snow up to his waist. Brock grabbed his arm and pulled up.

“Get up.” He wished he could muster a more authoritative tone, but it was hard with his teeth chattering. “Come on.”

“Just need a little rest,” Jack panted.

“No. No resting. We gotta keep moving, come on.” Brock pulled harder.

Jack looked up at him seriously. “Leave me here.”

“No,” Brock barked. “No, you don’t get to give up.”

“Brock, I’m not gonna make it.”

Brock didn’t have enough energy to argue. He dropped Jack’s wet coat and took off his own. Jack watched him with wide eyes.

“What are you doing?”

Brock wrapped his coat around him and sank to his knees, fully aware he might not get back up. He took Jack’s gloved hands into his bare. They were purple and numb.

“You wanted to rest, so we’re resting.”

Damn, he was tired, too. First they fought for their lives in the freezing river, now out there in the cold. There was nothing but snow for miles. They lost all their gear, the comms, the relays, it’d be a while until somebody found them. Jack was right – they were dying.

“Don’t be… stupid.” Jack yanked his hands out of Brock’s grasp and he tried to take the coat off, but he struggled to force his arms to cooperate. “Just go. Get help or something. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Brock grabbed his arms, stilling his movements. “I ain’t going anywhere, not without you.”

Jack glared at him as if Brock offended him. Maybe because Brock was manipulating him and he knew it.

Brock raised his eyebrows, or at least that was his intention, but his face was as numb as his hands. “You ready to go now?”

Jack pursed his blue lips but nodded. They slowly got up and huddled under the coat.

Brock didn’t know how long they were walking when Jack pointed at something a few miles ahead.

“A cave!” he outshouted the wind that was whipping their faces.

Brock squinted. Jack was right – there was a cave, covered in snow so much it could be easily mistaken for a huge drift. Either that or they were both hallucinating.

When they finally reached it, Brock was torn between complaining about the quality of their shelter and being thankful that there _was_ a shelter. He took the gloves from Jack and piled snow in the entrance to prevent the wind from blowing inside. When he was finished, he took his clothes off with trembling, stiff fingers. His underwear froze to his butt and it burned when he tore it off. There was ice in his pubes.

“If we survive this one—” he started, turning to Jack, but the words died on his lips when he saw him curled up against the wall with his eyes closed.

“Hey!” He strode to him and shook his shoulder. “No sleeping!”

Jack’s eyes cracked open. Brock pulled him up.

“Come on, Big Guy, take those off.”

He pushed the coat off Jack’s shoulders and helped him out of the rest of his clothes. Then he sat down on the hard ground, pulled Jack into his lap and covered them with the only remotely dry thing they owned – his coat. Jack curled against Brock’s chest, his skin as cold as ice.

“I’m sorry.” His voice shook like the rest of him.

“What for, having hypothermia? Let’s not get ridiculous.”

“I fell into the river.”

“It ain’t like you wanted to,” Brock barked. “Cut yourself some slack, not everything’s your fault. Shit just happens sometimes.”

He knew Jack wasn’t convinced, but at least he stopped with that bullshit. He reached for Jack’s coat and dug a zippo lighter out of the pocket. Opening it took a bit of effort because it was covered in a layer of ice, but it produced a flame when he flicked it. He brought it close, feeling his face tingle in response to the warmth. Jack leaned in, cupping his hands around it. They had no means of lighting an actual fire, so this little flame was all they had, like The Little Match Girl.

He had a bad feeling the same thing that happened to the girl would happen to them.

“If things go really bad,” he said, “you have my permission to kill me and eat me.”

Jack tilted his head up to look at him. “Right back at ya.”

Color was returning to Jack’s face, but his lips were still blue. The little flame wasn’t cutting it. If they didn’t produce some heat on their own, they were lost.

Brock leaned in, and it was a testament to how tired and resigned Jack was that he didn’t even question it. The contrast between the cold of Jack’s lips and the heat of his mouth was… something new. Brock licked along his lower lip and then sucked it in. It was an attempt to warm it up rather than a proper kiss.

“There,” he murmured after pulling away. “Saved by True Love’s Kiss,” he joked.

“Hold your horses. I’m still cold.”

Jack’s lips were barely warmed up, but Brock’s burned beneath them. Jack adjusted himself in Brock’s lap, sitting taller, his hands resting on Brock’s cheeks to tilt his face up. Warmth pooling inside him lit up his skin when Jack deepened the kiss, licking into his mouth, and with it came hope that maybe they’d survive after all.


	7. The Sun Will Always Rise Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During Brock's absence, Jack had tried to do many things. He had tried to make himself coffee, but he couldn't open the cupboard. He had tried to sit on the bar stool, but he fell right through and kept falling until something pulled him back and he was again in his kitchen. He had discovered he could go through walls, but when he tried to walk through the front door, the same force pulled him back inside. For some reason, he could not leave the apartment.
> 
> All of this in addition to Brock ignoring him had led him to a simple conclusion: he was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I'm doing on my blog.  
> The prompt was 'ghosts, hauntings'.

The bed beside Jack was empty and cold when he woke up, but he could hear Brock knock around in the kitchen. He yawned and stretched, then lay for a few minutes, staring out the window. The sky was gray with clouds and looking like it was about to rain; generally uninviting to go outside. Jack sighed and forced himself to get out of bed. He expected the bedroom to be cold, but apparently Brock finally put the heating on, so he didn't bother with pulling on a sweater and went straight to the kitchen.

Brock was already dressed and had his hair carefully done. He must have already been outside. Jack shook his head with a smile; never deterred by the weather, Brock went out for a jog every morning. Jack was too much of a night owl for that and he usually slept through Brock's morning routine, waking up only when he was up and ready to leave.

"I want one, too," he said when Brock turned on the coffee machine.

Brock filled the machine with coffee beans, then pulled out two cups from a cupboard above and set them under the machine's dispensers. When they were both full, he turned off the machine, took the cups, and turned around.

"Fuck," he muttered and turned one upside down above the sink.

"Hey!" Jack sprang towards the sink, but all he could do was to watch the aromatic black liquid flow down the drain. "What the fuck, Brock?!"

Brock didn't answer him, just set the empty cup down and took a careful sip from the other one, thick crema sticking to the stubble above his upper lip.

"What's the silent treatment about?" Jack asked, not even trying to keep the anger out of his voice. "What the fuck are you mad about this time?"

Brock circled the kitchen counter to sit on a bar stool. He took another big gulp of coffee, then fixed his gaze on something undefined.

"Stop ignoring me," Jack snarled.

Brock stood up again and approached a shelf fully set with alcohol bottles. Jack realized Brock hadn’t been staring at nothing but at a bottle of rum he was now taking off the shelf.

"Are you fucking serious? It's not even noon yet."

Brock considered the bottle in his hands for a moment, but at least this time he listened to Jack and put it away. He finished off his coffee and left the kitchen. Jack followed him to the foyer.

"Where are you going?" he asked as Brock put on his sneakers and grabbed a pleather jacket from the hook. "Will you fucking wait a second?!"

He reached for Brock's shoulder and stared in awe as his fingers went right through. Brock flinched, rubbed his arm, put the jacket on, and stepped out the door. Jack watched it close with an unpleasant, cold feeling creeping up on him. Slowly, he took the couple of steps that separated him from the door and tried to grab the handle. His hand closed on nothing. 

*

 

Brock came home with red eyes and sniffling. Jack watched him with his arms crossed over his chest from the foyer's corner where he had a good view on both the kitchen and the living room.

During Brock's absence, Jack had tried to do many things. He had tried to make himself coffee, but he couldn't open the cupboard. He had tried to sit on the bar stool, but he fell right through and kept falling until something pulled him back and he was again in his kitchen. He had discovered he could go through walls, but when he tried to walk through the front door, the same force pulled him back inside. For some reason, he could not leave the apartment.

All of this in addition to Brock ignoring him had led him to a simple conclusion: he was dead.

He had tried hard to remember how it happened, but he came up empty. He couldn't remember the details of the last few days or even weeks. There were things he knew, like that he lived and worked in Washington DC, he was a SHIELD agent and a Hydra sleeper agent, and that Brock was his boyfriend, but most of his memories seemed to be gone. 

Brock hung his jacket on the hook and took off his sneakers. He sniffled again and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand. He stepped inside the kitchen, took a bottle of red wine off the shelf, opened it and went to the living room with it. He sat down on the couch, and a second later Jack was right beside him, not sitting but floating a few millimeters above the couch.

Every attempt at communication, at letting Brock know he was there, misfired. He tried to talk to him, but Brock couldn't hear him. He tried to touch him; his hand only went through Brock's body, and Brock shivered in turn and pulled his sleeves over his hands, but in no way acknowledged Jack's presence. Jack also tried to move something, but as with Brock's body, his hands weren't solid enough to touch anything. So there they sat, silent, Brock drinking, trying to keep his tears in and wiping them every time he failed, and Jack's heart breaking over it. He hated seeing Brock like this; he hated being so helpless and unable to provide any kind of comfort. 

Brock dozed off on the couch eventually, and Jack couldn't even cover him with a blanket.

*

 

Jack couldn't sleep, but he wasn't tired. He didn't feel much of anything anymore; he pretty much forgot what hunger or back pains were. The ache he felt was of a different kind; a heavy feeling that spread across all his being that couldn't be cured or soothed. It filled him every time he looked at Brock rambling around the apartment with nothing to do, drinking, and sleeping with his face buried in Jack's hoodie he had soaked with his tears. Sometimes he would start a sentence and cut himself off once he remembered the person he was talking to was dead, and no amount of Jack's 'I'm here' could change his mind.

Jack still tried to signalize his presence somehow. There were so many supposedly haunted houses in America—how were those ghosts doing it? All Jack was capable of was to make Brock cold with his touch, and it was such a minor and fleeting thing Brock barely ever reacted to it. 

Jack was roused from his musings by a doorbell. Brock was apparently expecting it because he got up to open the door without a second thought. Jack followed him curiously, but stopped in his tracks at the sight of  _ Captain America  _ stepping inside. 

"What's he doing here?" Jack asked out loud, knowing he wouldn't receive an answer, but he got used to talking to himself for the past few days of being a ghost.

Cap was looking at Brock with concern. "How are you holding up?"

Brock shrugged, but then his face screwed up, and Cap gathered him in his arms. Jack clenched his hands into fists as Brock wrapped his arms around Cap's waist and buried his face in the crook of his neck. His all being shook and  _ burned  _ with anger.

Suddenly, the bulb above them exploded, plunging the foyer into darkness. Brock and Cap tore apart and raised their heads to inspect what happened.

"It must have gotten too hot," Cap said eventually.

Brock nodded, frowning. "Yeah..." He stared at the bulb's remains for a moment longer, then lost interest in it. "Do you, uh... want anything to drink?"

"No, thanks, I'm good."

They moved to the living room, but Jack stayed behind, still looking up at the broken bulb. He did that. He knew he did. It seemed that strong emotions made him capable of more than just making someone cold. Maybe he'd be able to use that, one day.

Now though, with his anger slowly subsiding, he began to feel tired, so very tired that he didn't care how close to each other Brock and Cap were sitting on the couch...

*

 

Jack lay in bed unmoving for a few minutes after waking up. What a strange dream he had. In the dream, he a ghost trapped in his own apartment and unable to communicate with Brock.

It was more of a nightmare, really.

He turned onto his side. Brock was still asleep beside him, curled into a ball under the covers so tightly Jack could have held all of him with just one arm. It made him look so small. 

What time was it? The bedroom was filled with daylight, but it must have been early if Brock was still in bed. It was unlikely for Jack to wake up before him though it had happened before. He turned his head and reached for his phone that should have been lying on his nightstand, but it was gone. Maybe he had left it somewhere else. He tried to recall the previous day, but the only memory he seemed to have was the nightmare.

He stilled, less sleepy and more aware of the here and now. Slowly, he let his hand drop onto the nightstand. He felt no resistance when it went right through the cheap wood.

He turned to face Brock again, the warm, soft sheets around him more of a memory than a feeling. The heavy ache filled him again when he looked at Brock’s face, puffy from sleep, his brow furrowed as if even when asleep, he was hurting. His eyelids slowly lifted, uncovering hazel, reddened eyes. His lips moved silently and curtly, just one syllable, one word. He blinked and frowned, squinting as the sunlight hit his face, bringing out the green in his eyes, Jack’s body not having been solid enough to shield him. He got up, but Jack remained in bed, frozen, certain what Brock had just said was his name. Caught in between dreams and reality, he saw Jack for just a second.

Brock was already out of the bathroom and getting dressed when Jack finally pulled himself together and floated out of bed. It was hard to tell how much time had passed since he faded away the day Cap paid Brock a visit. Maybe it was the next morning, but somehow Jack doubted it. The apartment had a different feel to it though he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Perhaps it was more dusty and cluttered. It would mean he had been away for a few days at least—where exactly, he had no idea. Maybe nowhere.

He followed Brock into the foyer and watched him put on his shoes. He didn't want him to go, but he supposed Brock had places to be, and more important things to do than entertain his dead boyfriend whose presence he wasn't even aware of. Brock reached for his jacket but hesitated, his hand trembling ever so slightly, then changed his mind and grabbed Jack's leather jacket instead. It was an old, worn thing that Jack didn't quite remember when he got, but he knew that he’d had it since before he even met Brock. Brock often complained that it was gross and ugly and 'when would Jack finally buy himself something new', but for all his grumbling, he always quite enjoyed wearing it. It was warm and comfortable unlike anything else either of them owned, and it 'smelled like Jack'. 

It looked big on him despite them wearing the same size. Brock raised his shoulders, making himself look like he was drowning in it, hid one hand inside the pocket and stepped out into the stairwell. Jack watched the door close behind him, then looked around the apartment with a deep sigh, wondering what to do. In his current ghostly state, he couldn't even lounge on the couch and watch TV because he couldn't touch the remote. Maybe he could operate the TV another way and spend the rest of the day trying to figure that out.

He didn't get a chance to put his plan in motion though; soon after Brock left, he felt a familiar strong pull and suddenly he was on the passenger seat of a moving car. He watched familiar buildings pass by and first raindrops hit the glass and flow down, leaving sinuous patterns behind. He turned his head towards the driver, completely unsurprised when it turned out to be Brock. Jack let his gaze wander from his sloppily made hair, to his puffy eyes and unshaven cheeks and down his neck to the collar of his jacket. That was it, Jack realized. He wasn't haunting the apartment; he was haunting the jacket.

He looked out the window again. Despite having lived in this city for years, he was barely recognizing the area. He knew he must have been taking that route often if not every day, and it looked familiar, but he wasn't able to tell where he was or where they were heading. He assumed Brock was driving to work, so he was surprised when he pulled into a hospital's parking lot.

"What're we doing here?" Jack asked as Brock killed the engine and got out of the car.

He followed him out of the car and into the large, old building. They walked the corridor, passing patients and personnel and taking turns. Brock didn't stop to ask for directions, so he must have known where he was going. The longer they walked, the more anxious Jack was getting. Were they visiting someone? Did someone get hurt? Was it their teammate, or worse, Jack's family member? 

Brock who was walking in a fast and steady pace, finally slowed down as he reached his destination. He pushed a door open, and Jack walked behind him into a room. 

There were only two beds, but one was empty. In the other lay a man attached to a couple machines. Jack approached him slowly, and even when he was finally able to look into his face, he didn't recognize him right away. He realized it was because he had never actually seen this man in person, only his reflection in the mirror. He was unusually pale, but breathing. Alive.

Jack wasn't dead.

"I don't understand," he murmured.

If he wasn't dead, then why was he outside of his body? He touched his hand resting on the hospital covers. His fingers went through like his body was just any other object.

"How do I get back inside?" he asked louder, as if expecting to actually get an answer this time.

He made several attempts, but every way he could think of failed, so he decided to try and find out what happened to him instead. He had a breathing tube inserted into his mouth, attached to a ventilator, and that alone gave him an idea. Lungs failure. But why? He tried to read his health card hanging on the footboard of the bed, but he couldn't make out the writing. Inspecting his vital signs on the bedside monitor also wasn't helpful—all he could tell was that all the readings were in the norm—or at least the ones he could understand.

The sound of the door opening caught his attention, and he turned on his heel to see his twin sister Dina and his mother enter the room, with a couple of doctors following them closely. Dina looked tired with her green eyes circled and blonde hair tied into a messy bun, but when she smiled at Brock in greeting, it made her look years younger. Jack's mother was less expansive; she nodded at Brock, but didn't smile, pursing her lips in worry instead. Jack thought that, unlike Dina, she seemed to have grown older since the last time he saw her—but when exactly was that, he couldn't remember. Dina reached for both Brock's and her mother's hands, and that alerted Jack to what the doctors were doing. He tracked the one that approached the ventilator.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a strained voice when the doctor pushed a button. 

Half a second later he was by his side. He couldn't tell what the buttons he was pushing were doing, but he had a bad feeling about this. He turned to look at his family again, at how his mother was clenching her jaw, at how hard Dina was holding her hand. 

"What are you doing?" he repeated, his panic rising.

The machine was slowing down, going quiet. The other doctor started pulling the tube from his mouth.

"Hey, I need that!" His hand went through the doctors arm, and that frustrated him even more. He was witnessing himself being unplugged from life support, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "I'm here!" he yelled helplessly. "I'm right here, I can't go back inside, you have to stop this!"

He grabbed his health card and threw it. It flew over his family's heads, and they tore apart, watching wide-eyed as it hit the wall and fell to the ground. Jack's mother moaned and pressed both hands to her chest. Dina and Brock exchanged glances.

But it was too late; Jack ran out of time. He could feel himself disintegrate—and then the familiar force pulled him away.

*

 

It was bright where he went. He was floating, surrounded by warmth, and so calm. It felt…

It felt good.

He blinked a few times to clear his vision and realized he was staring up into an angelic face.

"Yeah," he croaked, "I can stay here."

"Fuck, you better," the angel replied in a completely unangelic way. "Can you imagine the paperwork SHIELD would put me through if they lost one of their best snipers? Not fun, man."

Jack gave himself a moment to reorient. The warmth he felt was from the bed, the light hurting his eyes from the bedside lamp. The floating feeling—probably from drugs. And the man he initially took for an angel was actually more of a devil, but damn, the most lovable one of them all. He noticed Jack squinting and turned the lamp off, leaving the room dimly lit by another source Jack couldn't see from his position.

He didn't die. He was still in the same hospital room, but it was night already, judging by the dark sky outside the windows. He frowned, remembering something.

"Where are mom and Dina?"

"Home. They were tired. It's one in the morning." Brock regarded him for a moment with his eyes narrowed and brow furrowed, then opened his mouth a few times, but didn't say a word. He sighed and adjusted himself on the plastic chair he was sitting on, leaning in closer. "The health card was you, wasn't it?" he blurted, looking uncertain, but piercing Jack with his gaze.

Jack swallowed, his throat dry and tender from the breathing tube. "Yeah..." he said slowly, "I was confused. I thought you were saying your last goodbyes to me."

Brock watched him silently, his expression full of questions he was too afraid to ask; not only of the 'Did you see me weak and vulnerable?', but also 'What's on the other side?' kind.

"Speaking of," Jack continued, "what happened?"

Brock leaned away with a deep breath, scratching his overgrown stubble. "We had a mission on the Pacific. Remember? The hijacked ship? You fell into the ocean, nearly drowned." He controlled his voice so well he sounded impassive. 

Now that Jack reached back with his memory, he could in fact remember the mission, but not falling or drowning. He must have suppressed those memories. Maybe it was for the best.

"How do you feel?" Brock asked after a moment of silence.

"I think I'm high."

Brock huffed out a surprised laugh. "We weren't sure what to expect after you wake up," he said once he sobered up. "You suffered some damage to the brain. I was afraid—" he trailed off with a scowl, as always when he felt he said too much. "Well, welcome home."

He was still eyeing Jack curiously. There was a conversation about what was happening with Jack while he was comatose waiting for them to have, but Jack didn't worry about it. For now, he was just glad to be back in his body; solid and audible.


	8. Everything About You (rumrogers)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hates Steve.
> 
> He hates Steve's stupid perfect body, and the fact Steve's technically ninety-five. He hates his blonde hair and blue eyes and his baby face. He hates the expression of disapproval he makes sometimes when Brock talks, and that he always thinks he's right and therefore he can do what he wants. He hates that they're supposed to be enemies, and that Steve isn't supposed to know about it, so Brock can't throw it in his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I'm doing on my blog.  
> The prompt was 'love/hate relationship'.

He hates Steve.

He hates Steve's stupid perfect body, and the fact Steve's technically ninety-five. He hates his blonde hair and blue eyes and his baby face. He hates the expression of disapproval he makes sometimes when Brock talks, and that he always thinks he's right and therefore he can do what he wants. He hates that they're supposed to be enemies, and that Steve isn't supposed to know about it, so Brock can't throw it in his face.

But he loves how Steve's cheeks flush when Brock backs him up against the wall in the locker room, he loves how Steve stares at him with clear want, and he loves how eagerly he responds to Brock's touch. He loves his lips, soft and perfect, and his tongue, unskilled and uncertain and sweet. He loves his cock, but he hates the fact he's addicted to it.

He hates he will have to kill him.

*

He hates Brock. He hates him because he's Hydra, and evil, and he tried to kill Steve, Sam, and about three hundred thousand other people.

He hates him because they were fucking, and no one can hurt you more than a person you thought that loved you.

He hates him because, as he looks at him lying unconscious in a hospital bed, covered in bandages, he still feels warmth filling his chest, though it's different now. Painful.

*

He hates that Steve always finds a way to thwart his plans. He hates that he's strong and resistant and healthy, and Brock can barely catch his breath after a minute of fighting him.

He hates that they're both alone, that he's on his knees, panting, reaching up to take his helmet off. He hates the look of horror on Steve's face when he does.

He hates his own ugly face.

He hates Steve's hands touching it.

“You look like a lasagna.” Steve's voice is gentle, and he hates that, too. He grins in response, and he hates how it hurts his cheeks.

“Does it mean you want a bite?”

*

He hates how Brock is still pretty despite all his injuries; he hates his stupid mangled handsome face, and his cheeky smirk, and his glinting, reddened eyes. He hates his muscular body, covered in burn scars and sweat from exhaustion. He hates how easily his hand slides down his chest and abdomen, and the uneven, rough feel of his skin, and how it warms up under his touch.

He hates that Brock brings out the worst in him. When they're together, Steve's no longer pure and righteous, he's not a hero. He's a beast with animalistic urges to possess and mark up; to bite and to fuck.

He hates fucking Brock, really, now that he knows how dark and twisted the man beneath him is exactly, but he loves every sound of distress he makes when Steve slams his hips in too hard and when he pulls Brock’s hair and when he twists his arm behind his back. "For Bucky," he snarls then, "and that's for Sam, and that's for me."

He hates that taking pleasure in hurting another person satisfies him so much even if said person is Brock Rumlow.

*

He hates how hot his body gets when Steve touches him, and how his only thoughts are about his dick when they're so close. He hates he's so weakened after the building fell on him that he can't do much more than lie on his chest, his thighs trembling from keeping his hips up in the air despite Steve gripping them hard, so hard his fingers leave bruises. He hates that he only has the energy to take it, that he can't give as good as he gets. That when Steve growls above him, insults and threats and confessions, he can only bring himself to grunt in response.

He hates that he can't hold him by the back of his neck and dish out his revenge for his team, for Hydra, for—

He hates that the sex hurts so much and that it's the only thing that makes him come these days. He hates how he can barely keep conscious afterwards, how foggy his mind feels, and how he's slumped and unmoving for minutes on the ratty mattress that has been serving him as a bed for the past weeks.

He hates he'll have to move again before Steve comes back with the Avengers to arrest him.

*

He hates the way Brock looks spread out on his back with his eyes closed and lips parted, chest heaving with deep, aborted breaths. He hates how inviting those lips look, he hates the urge to lean in and kiss him.

He hates how unguarded Brock looks when he lazily opens his eyes to gaze at him. He watches that look harden and become more wary, and he's not sure how he feels about it, but it makes his stomach clench painfully.

He hates the awkwardness after and the fact that neither knows what to say. He hates that once his thirst for Brock is satisfied, he sobers up and sees what he is, what he's done, _ what he is. _

Maybe he shouldn't have become Captain America, maybe he doesn't deserve the honor after all.

Well, at least he's not  _ that _ , he thinks as he looks at Brock like he's something gross that got stuck to his shoe. Brock rolls his eyes in response like he hasn't been expecting anything else. He sits up with a grunt and reaches for his clothes, and Steve can see in his slow, careful moves that it takes effort.

He hates that it makes him feel concern—concerned about Brock Rumlow, really, Steve?

"What ya staring at?" Brock snarls as Steve watches him get dressed, still sitting awkwardly on the edge of the dirty, smelly mattress.

"Your ugly face," he responds way too late, words he's said many times before and really should have thought of a better comeback at this point.

"You love fucking that face," Brock retorts, but there's no smugness in his voice. He's not even sarcastic. He sounds more resigned than anything, and it hits Steve for the first time that maybe Brock also doesn't want to be here, to keep doing this, but much like Steve, he doesn't know how to stop.

He hates that Brock's words are true, and that he's thinking that he'd also love to kiss that face. But Brock won't let him, especially not now when they're done, and it's good because Steve's certain he'd throw up if he did. Because Brock isn't the person he loves.

He hates that the person he's still in love with never even existed. He hates he misses him. He hates Brock looks like him.

He hates how weary Brock seems when he drags his hands down his face, and how he looks away when he says, "Get the fuck out, Cap, the party's over," because it's not that Cap wore him out with his fucking, he's just sick and tired of the fucked up situation they've both put themselves in.

He puts on his Captain America suit and it feels dirty in his hands—no, his hands feel dirty on it—he's dirty because he was touching Brock, inside and out and his hands are covered in lube and semen and sweat and dead skin.

He doesn't deserve to be Captain America, and he hates he’s slowly stopping caring.

"You know," Brock drawls when Steve's on his way to the door—a piece of cardboard, really, "I'll have to kill you to make it stop.”

Steve snorts. "You wouldn't survive the attempt."

Brock grins, and he hates how deranged it makes him look. "Of course not, big guy, that's the point—I'd take you with me."


	9. Definitely Not Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turned out, the couple wasn't leaning against the tree; the man clutching the female was pressing her into it as he sucked on her neck, and it took Brock more time than it should have to realize that he was a vampire. His skin broke in cold sweat; his pack always spoke of vampires with resentment, and since he was very little, he had been taught not to come close to any of their kind. Still, he wasn't as terrified of the vampire in front of him as he was of the human with the shotgun, so he sat still and quiet and watched him drink the female dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I'm doing on my blog.  
> Kalika999 asked for a vampire/werewolf AU.

Brock was just a cub when he was discarded by his pack. He was small and couldn't howl or growl or make any other sounds for that matter, and was deemed useless. One night he just woke up alone in the forest and he couldn't even call for his pack.

He was too young yet to get the hang of hunting, and so he was wandering the woods starving for a few days. Several times he came very close to the edge, so close he could see the road leading to the city from between the tall trees, and a lone house that stood nearby. But he was too scared to go out there. He remembered his kin saying that the human living there had a shotgun. He had even managed to shoot one of their females; Brock remembered the gushing wound in her body and how she shook and howled until at last, she stilled. His mother had covered his eyes then and ordered him to go to sleep.

The human also kept chickens. Brock wasn't skilled enough to catch and kill a person, but he found himself fantasizing about the chickens more often. It couldn't be too hard to sneak into the coop and grab a sleeping hen. He didn't even worry about the human finding him; if he didn't eat something soon, anything, he'd starve to death, anyway.

He was hiding behind the bushes at the edge of the forest, watching the sun set behind the human's house when he heard a crackle of dead leaves being stomped on and, a few seconds later, an aborted scream nearby. His heart jumped when he realized the voice was of a human female. Human females screamed when they were hurt. Hurt human females could be too weak to fight off a young, starving werewolf.

He ran back inside the forest, led by the smell of blood that made his mouth water. He came to a halt when he saw two figures hidden in the shadows leaning against a wide-trunk tree, and he ducked behind the nearest bushes, watching with smart eyes.

As it turned out, the couple wasn't leaning against the tree; the man clutching the female was pressing her into it as he sucked on her neck, and it took Brock more time than it should have to realize that he was a vampire. His skin broke in cold sweat; his pack always spoke of vampires with resentment, and since he was very little, he had been taught not to come close to any of their kind. Still, he wasn't as terrified of the vampire in front of him as he was of the human with the shotgun, so he sat still and quiet and watched him drink the female dry. She went limp in his arms, and he dropped her. He walked away soundlessly through the dead leaves and dry branches that covered the ground. 

Brock slowly approached the body and crouched down to touch it. It was still warm, and, unable to contain himself anymore, he buried his teeth in it.

He hadn't been eating for long when a smooth and a tad concerned voice asked, "Are you here all alone?"

Brock froze, clutching the female's heart in one hand, and looked up. The vampire hadn't left, it seemed. He was standing between the trees, watching Brock with blood-red eyes. Brock gulped audibly, but he was still too hungry to want to move away from his food.

"You don't have to be scared," the vampire continued, not moving from his place. "You can talk to me, it's fine."

Brock shook his head, trying to indicate that he hadn’t been able to utter a single sound ever since he was born. 

"I'm Jack," the vampire continued after a moment, frowning. He clearly hadn't understood. "What's your name?"

Brock shook his head again. Jack watched him for another while and then heaved a sigh. 

"Fine. I won't bother you anymore." He turned around. "Farewell."

Brock watched as he walked the road leading to the city. He glanced back at the cooling body at his feet, then raised his eyes again to Jack's figure, growing smaller and smaller in seconds.

Jack was kind to him and provided food. What did he have to lose? He straightened up and sprinted after him, slowing down only as he reached him. Jack didn't say anything as Brock followed him out of the woods, but there was a smirk playing on his lips.

 

*

Not much has changed since then. Brock has grown to become a big, strong adult wolf though his human form isn't as tall as Jack. Jack still hunts for the both of them. His style is different from what Brock remembers his kin's to have been, but why wouldn't it be? Jack is a vampire and he uses his charm to lure oblivious humans into his claws rather than chasing them and attacking once they tire of running.

Brock swirls his drink with a scowl. Nightclubs are Jack's favorite places to hunt in because, as he explained once, they're full of drunk easy girls that'll happily agree to go with him to the back alley if only he buys them a drink, and of course he's right; he's already found his prey. The pretty young woman in a short, silver dress giggles every few minutes at whatever bullshit he tells her. If Brock strained his ears, he would hear what Jack's saying exactly, but after years of listening in, he has had enough. It's always the same thing; he calls his preys beautiful and compliments their dancing; he tells them he's rich and that he owns a house in Hawaii that he invites them to spend a weekend at. To prove it, he buys them the most expensive drink the club has to offer, and they feel like they've just hit the jackpot, unaware that the money he spends comes from his previous victim's wallet.

It's the most annoying thing in the world. Jack has noticed Brock isn't too happy whenever they go to a nightclub, but Brock has never been able to communicate exactly how much he hates it. He supposes writing ‘I HATE THIS’ with three exclamation points and underlining it isn't the same as yelling it in Jack's face since Jack just swept him aside when Brock did that. Brock takes a big gulp of his drink and crushes an ice cube between his teeth in frustration at the memory.

When he raises his head again, Jack and the girl are gone, and Brock realizes he missed the moment of them going out. He rises from his bar stool, leaving his half-finished drink on the counter, and pushes his way through the crowd of sweaty human bodies to the exit; the cool, fresh air that hits his face once he's outside is a relief.

He breathes in deeply while looking around. They hunt at this club often, so he has a good idea where to find Jack, and sure enough, he catches a whiff of his rich cologne coming from behind the building. He doesn't smell any blood as he follows it, and he tenses, his shoulders clicking as he sets them. Jack wouldn't wait for him to start eating; there's something else holding him up.

He freezes at the sight of Jack with his tongue down the woman's throat instead of the nonexistent hole in her neck. He clenches his hands into fists. Jack has certainly heard him coming, but he doesn't stop making out with the girl.

It's frustrating how Brock can't just yell; just grab Jack and tell him exactly what he thinks about that. His whole body is shaking, and it takes him a moment to realize it's a start of his transformation; his skin itches when his fur starts to grow, his gums ache as his fangs poke through, and his claws dig into the skin of his palms. But the moon high in the sky isn't yet full, and he doesn't become a wolf, just this half-human creature.

Panting slightly from the exhaustion of his transformation, he looks around until he finds a rock that he grabs and throws at the pair. He doesn't quite care where he’s aiming, and the rock hits the wall right beside the woman's head. That makes Jack unstick himself from her mouth and raise his head. He looks Brock up and down quickly.

"What's the matter, Brock?" he asks calmly.

In response, Brock stomps his foot. He realizes how childish it must look, but he doesn't care.

"What's going on?" asks the confused prey. "Who's this?"

"Shh." Jack looks her in the eyes. "Don't worry about anything," he says in a low, captivating voice, and she doesn't respond. When Jack turns back to Brock, she keeps staring at him as if in a daze. "I'm afraid I don't understand what got you so riled up."

And Brock would tell him in excruciating detail what is so maddeningly frustrating in Jack's behavior, but he can't. What he can do is to show him, so he decides to do just that—he stomps over to him, reaches up to clutch the back of his neck and pulls his head down to kiss him on the lips.

Jack freezes in surprise at first, but Brock doesn't let up, and soon Jack's arm sneaks around his waist to pull him closer. Jack is always cold to the touch, but his lips are warm now, a taste of tomato juice from Bloody Mary still clinging to them. It's him who pulls away first, and Brock can't help but to lean in to chase his lips, and that makes him smile.

"So all this time when I thought you were angry at me, you were just jealous?" he asks, cupping Brock's face with his free hand.

Brock glares at him and shakes his head because he definitely hasn't been jealous, but Jack's touch soothes him enough for the claws and fangs to retract, and his body sheds the fine fur.

"You wanna tell me you're just hungry?" The knowing smile doesn't leave Jack's face.

Brock only cocks his head, as if saying,  _ maybe. _

Jack rolls his eyes, lets go of him and turns to the woman who's still staring at them with unfocused eyes. He slits her throat with his sharp nail in one quick move; her eyes become glassy, and she falls to the ground.

"Bon appétit," he says and licks his nail clean.

Brock grins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!


	10. Earth's Best Defender (ironbones)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I did on my blog.  
> The prompt was 'breathplay'.

They haven't talked about it.

They don't talk a lot. Between Brock's job and Tony's superheroing, there's just not enough time left for serious conversations, and whenever Brock visits Tony in Malibu, they get busy with other things. Besides, Tony knows he's an outlet for Brock; his life is hard enough without Tony in it, so Tony usually refrains from sharing his problems.

So they don't talk about the New York Battle or about the nightmares. Whenever Brock asks him if he's okay, he says yes. He doesn't say he can't look up at the sky, or that he hasn't slept in days. Brock doesn't care about the truthful answer, anyway.

As usual, there's not much talking when they see each other for the first time after the Battle. There will be, Tony knows, after Brock satisfies his thirst for him, but it won't be heart-to-heart. They've been meeting up like this for a couple of years, but there's still a lot Tony doesn't know about Brock, least of all his feelings. It's just not something he likes to discuss.

But Tony isn't thinking about it when Brock runs his hands down his body and mouths at his neck; when he unbuttons his shirt and undoes his belt. They're standing in the foyer, and Brock's still wearing his leather jacket and combat boots. He threw himself at Tony the moment he crossed the threshold, and it was Tony who had to reach for the handle to pull the door closed. There's dinner and a bottle of champagne waiting for them on the table in the dining room, but even when he was ordering the food out, Tony knew they wouldn't sit to it until the middle of the night, or even the next morning.

"You missed me," Tony states the obvious, standing there with his chest bare and his dress pants around his ankles and watching Brock get rid of his outerwear with eager fingers.

Sometimes he wonders if Brock has somebody in Washington. If he has sex as often as they meet which, if he's honest with himself, isn't very often; once a month or two. It's fine if he does—it's not like they're exclusive—but, well. Tony wonders.

"Yeah, no shit," Brock responds in a raspy voice that is doing _things_ to Tony whenever he hears it. "Wanna talk about it? Or would you rather I showed you?"

There's only one right answer to that question.

Brock is forceful and fervent in bed, and sometimes it leads to him being mean. Sometimes there's hair pulling or spanking; sometimes Tony wakes up the following morning to new bruises around his shoulders and hips. He never says a thing; some people like it rough, he gets it. It's not like Brock's some kind of sadist, anyway; he just gets thirsty for Tony after a long time of not seeing him and gets a little overenthusiastic. Tony doesn't mind. In fact, he finds some security in the way he can just let himself go and allow Brock to manhandle him however he likes.

It's no different this time; there are aching teeth marks around his neck, and Brock is keeping his hips steady with a vice grip. But what is winning Tony's focus the most is Brock's hot cock hitting just the right spot inside him that makes him moan and push his face further into the pillow in an attempt to muffle it. He'd drool all over it if his mouth wasn't drier than a desert.

A new ache flares across his scalp, and he lets go of the sheets he's been clenching and lets Brock pull him up to his knees. He sneaks an arm around Tony's waist, and Tony slumps against his chest, making Brock slide in even deeper. He rests his head on his shoulder with another broken moan, baring his neck. Brock licks a stripe up to his ear, then wraps his free hand around Tony's throat as he jerks his hips.

Tony knows what's coming; they've done this before. He expects Brock's hand to squeeze him and knows he'll have to work a little harder to breathe. Brock knows how to do it safely and he has never hurt Tony before.

But this time, Tony can't take a breath. His hands fly to his throat before he knows it, clawing at Brock’s hand, and when his vision begins to darken, he tries to throw Brock off. The next thing he knows, he's lying on his back, struggling to breathe though there's nothing clutching his airways anymore.

"Tony? Hey." Brock's hands feel cool on his cheeks and they ground him, give him a space to breathe in.

"What's happening?" he asks, his body still shaking. "What's wrong with me? Was I—" he trails off, going over his day in an attempt to sift out a single moment when he could have been poisoned.

"Looks like an anxiety attack to me."

Tony looks at Brock, at his serious, concerned eyes, and feels his body starting to calm down. "What?"

"Happens to guys like us." Brock smirks and flicks his cheek playfully, but then sobers up. "But it never happened in bed before, so what changed?" Tony doesn't respond, the fact he's just had an anxiety attack is still sinking in, and Brock does it for him. "It's New York, isn't it?"

Tony looks away instead of answering and for a moment he's not in his bedroom, he's not even on Earth, he's out _there_.

He feels Brock's hand run through his hair. "You're shaking again."

"I don't wanna talk about this," he snaps.

He hears Brock sigh, then feels him get up. He listens to his footsteps, bare feet on the wooden floor, as he exits the bedroom. Will he leave? Tony didn't mean to snap at him, it just happened.

But Brock comes back with a glass of water which he hands to Tony. When Tony sits up to drink, he realizes the insides of his thighs are sticky-wet—so at least one of them has finished. Maybe even both of them, somehow; he's soft, so it's not impossible.

Brock sits down beside him, and Tony isn't looking at him when he says, "I can't sleep."

"I take pills for that."

"But I _can't_." Once he gets courageous enough to look at him, Tony discovers Brock's watching him attentively. "Not with what's waiting out there. I've been thinking about everything I can do to stop—to fight this thing, but I know I'll never be able to make enough suits so I work as much as I can—"

"I'm gonna stop you right there." Brock takes the empty glass from him. "You're forgetting you ain’t the only one defending this planet. Now, I don't have any suits," he offers a fleeting smile, "but I have a team, a damn good one. Some of them fought the aliens. Some of them didn't come back. But we're nothing compared to _your_ team." He offers a faint smile. "What I'm trying to say is, you're not alone here. There'll always be someone watching over Earth, so you can allow yourself to rest sometime. Hell, you should, or the lack of sleep will kill you sooner than any army of aliens, and we can't afford that."

Tony feels some of the weight he's been carrying on his shoulders lift as he listens, and he nods slowly.

"Good." Brock climbs back into bed. "Sleep now."

He throws his arm across Tony's midsection just as he’s about to sit up.

"I should clean myself," he says.

"Shush." Brock pins him down with a hand on his chest. "Tomorrow."

"It's itchy," Tony argues.

"Then take a goddamn tissue. No more sneaking out to that workshop of yours, you need a good rest."

Tony sighs and strains his arm to reach for a tissue box on the nightstand. He takes a couple and wipes his thighs as best he can with Brock's arm pressing him to his chest. He realizes how truly exhausted he is as soon as his head hits the pillow, and his last fleeting thought is that maybe this night, someone else can worry about Earth's safety. Tony Stark needs to rest.

  
  
  
  



	11. Brock Dies at the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I did on my blog.  
> The prompt was 'inspired by a classic horror'. The story I used as an inspiration isn't widely recognized as a classic, but it's one of my favorites.  
> (No, it's not "John Dies at the End" :P)

April 21st, Thursday

I never thought that out of all my enemies, loneliness would be so hard to battle.

I'm currently hiding in one of those little towns that no one's ever heard of besides the inhabitants themselves, naturally. I live in a rent-controlled apartment. Nothing much. 25  m 2  of dirty floor with a bed, a desk with a chair, a closet, and a kitchenette. Still, I've lived in worse places even when I wasn't considered a traitor, and no one will find me here.

Nah, the room isn't the problem.

I swear the apartment block attracts the weirdest people. There aren't actually many living here—I think the town has only about 500 residents, and most of them live in houses away from the downtown. The apartment block is squeezed between two dive bars. So there's a guy in 302 who's fucking insane and yelling offending shit at people passing his door (I think he's watching the stairwell through the peephole). I live next to him in 303 so I pass his door all the time. The loony has a fucking mouth on him, and it’s me saying that.

There's another in 309 who looks nice enough, but he's stone-deaf, so the only thing we can exchange is a smile and a nod. Also, I once saw him go out at night carrying a bow and arrow—what the fuck? 

Then there’s the one upstairs, and it might sound unbelievable, but he’s the weirdest. I actually checked today—he's the room 403, but I suspect he's lived in another one before. I hear him move his furniture almost every night, and it sounds very much like he's moving from room to room. The guy himself looks... well, not normal. He's pale as fuck, but not sickly pale. He moves with vigor and I’m pretty sure he’s muscular under that black coat of his. He’s also tall as fuck, enough to fish him out of the crowd if there ever happened to be one in this shithole. He has a scar on his face, from the right side of his lower lip to his jaw. In other words, you wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley unless you’re into that kind of shit or make a damn good competition in looking scary like me.

He’s somehow handsome regardless which is something I can’t say about myself. My burnt ugly mug doesn't make other people eager to talk to me. I used to be a social butterfly before all this shit and now I miss the casual chats and easy camaraderie with my teammates, which is why I've resigned myself to writing on a piece of paper like I did many, many times before when writing my reports—a thing I hated doing; it’s funny how life works out sometimes—before I completely snap and start talking to myself and yelling at people through my door like 302.

 

April 22nd, Friday

The guy upstairs was moving his furniture again. I barely caught a wink of sleep. I went there in the morning before going to the bakery; it seems that he's now occupying the room 402.

I tried to chat up the baker again, but she was being a bitch. I really should try and make friends with 402 instead. He doesn’t seem like a rude guy.

I admit he's a lot on my mind. I’ve been thinking about how I could start a conversation, but there's something about him that makes me reluctant to approach him. Whenever I see him out on the stairwell, he’s looking at me with a kind of a mocking smile as if he knows I’m interested in him, so I ignore him to prove him wrong. Only he isn't wrong.

Maybe I should ask the super about him the next time I see him. It might help me figure out how to approach him.

 

April 23rd, Saturday

402 is now 401. Why the fuck does he keep moving and does he have to do that at night? Surely he doesn’t expect to find a better room? They all suck. At least I slept through the morning, so I'm not that exhausted today.

Anyway, he was again wearing that stupid smug face when I made a move to approach him, so I changed my mind. I snapped a pic of him when he wasn't looking though. It's moved, and his skin is so bright it makes him look like a ghost. I've been looking at it so often it's fucking embarrassing, but at least I'm not talking to it like Tom Hanks to a football in "Cast Away".

 

April 24th, Sunday

I watched 401 through the peephole last night. He was moving his furniture from upstairs to 310. Lucky deaf 309, I'm sure he slept through it like a baby.

I noticed that 401-now-310 is moving backwards room after room. I wonder what he'll do now that 309 is occupied. Will he stay where he is, or will he just skip it?

I went out to a pub tonight, but I could tell even the bartender wanted me to fuck off. I wonder if it's my face, the fact I'm not a local, or if I completely forgot how to have a casual chat. Might be all three.

A car almost ran me over as I was coming back—admittedly, quite drunk—to my apartment. 310 was watching me from the main gate, smiling that mocking smile. I flipped him off.

I wonder what his name is. Probably Gaylord or something equally stupid and embarrassing.

 

April 25th, Monday

The deaf guy from 309 died last night. I don’t know how cause I wasn’t curious enough to find out. It’s convenient for 310. I'm sure he'll move there tonight.

 

April 26th, Tuesday

I called it—310 is now 309. Not that I’m surprised, it was kind of a given.

It’s a good opportunity to approach him. “Doesn’t it feel weird to live in a dead guy’s apartment?” I could ask. I have a feeling all he’d do would be to give me a sardonic look. I never really met the guy, but during the last few weeks, I’ve gotten to know him quite well—as well as I possibly could.

Then I could ask, “Do you know what happened to him?” Not that I care, but it would be some kind of a conversation. Although I imagine he’d only say, “No,” and that would be it.

I wonder what his voice sounds like. He looks like a guy with a really deep, really low voice. The kind of voice that makes your skin tingle.

 

April 27th, Wednesday

I bought a bottle of bourbon. More than half of it is gone which is why my writing might be unintelligible. I probably spelled that wrong. Not that it matters, no one's ever gonna read it, and if someone does—sorry pal, there's nothing of significance here. Just ramblings of a lonely man.

I'm running out of meds, hence the booze. I'm trying to slow down the pain. I don't know where to get more. If I raided the local pharmacy, I'd have to leave this town immediately, and I'm reluctant to do so without finding out about the big guy from 308. If I won't find out what his fucking game is with moving every night, it'll eat away at me forever. 

Striking a conversation still remains just a dream, but his door was ajar as I was coming back from the store, so I peeked in. He was sitting in a chair shirtless, sharpening a knife, and yeah, he’s nicely built. There must be a gym somewhere nearby. 

I fled before he caught me looking.

Speaking of the bakery, I asked the baker about him. He must be buying his bread somewhere, right? Well, not in the local bakery—the fucking witch either lied, or really never heard of him.

I'm gonna ask the sup.

 

April 28th, Thursday

Yes, the meds are gone. Yes, I am shitfaced. Mr. Mysterious skipped a room and is now occupying 306. It's messing with my brain. Or maybe it's the booze.

 

APRIL THE FUCKING 29TH

FUCK FUCK FUCK

 

April 30th, Saturday

It hurts to walk. It fucking hurts to write. It fucking hurts to fucking breathe.

I'm so lonely.

 

May 1st, Sunday

I called the super and asked him to do minor shopping for me. Told him I'm sick and cannot leave the apartment. He's a nice guy, so he helped out. 

I asked him about the guy from 305. He had no idea who I meant. Once I was saying goodbye to him at my door, I spotted Mr. Mysterious standing in his door, smirking at me. There's only one room left between us. I'd anticipate his next move if I wasn't so sick of the pain.

 

May who cares, might be my last

I'd rather die than live like this anymore.

I couldn’t sleep last night as 305 was moving his furniture to 304. And I know who he is. It became clear the moment I took my gun to clean it and looked straight into the barrel. No one has ever seen him, and the guy who stood in his way died—all the evidence was right there in front of me the whole time, but I was too blind to notice. 

Maybe it’s a crazy thought. I don’t know what’s crazy anymore.

He will come tomorrow, and I'm okay with that. I'm tired of running and I’m not scared of him. Quite the opposite; I’ve been dreaming about him all this time, and knowing I’ll finally get to meet him excites me. We’ll have time for a chat or more; my fate is, after all, in my hands.

 


	12. Two More Shall Take Its Place (winterbones)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Halloween 2018 event I did on my blog.  
> The prompt was 'lovecraftian horror'.

Brock Rumlow used to befriend his teammates; Tony Masters and Eric O’Grady to name a few, and most especially Jack Rollins, a man Brock had held dear. But all of his men, men he had known well, men he had cherished or at least respected, met their gruesome ends and were replaced by fresh meat, and the fresh meat was replaced by fresher meat, and so on and so on, until Brock detached himself from his team and all he knew about them were their skills and names.

He wished he could say they all died in battle; that they were heroes that sacrificed their lives for the greater good, and that was ultimately what he had been telling their families. But the truth was they had all been found in the Ideal Federal Savings Bank, alive but their sanity gone. Then they would spend a few days in the Medical Bay until declared dead. All their funerals were closed casket, and if Brock hadn’t seen Jack’s body in the morgue with his own two eyes, he would have suspected they were still alive somewhere.

Taking care of Jack while his body was still functioning, but his soul—or however one named whatever made him  _ Jack _ —so very clearly gone was the most heart-wrenching. Jack had been multilingual, and though mostly silent, whenever he spoke, his tongue mixed the languages, so nobody could understand him. He didn’t look at Brock with recognition, and would sometimes react violently to his attempts at communication; other times he’d sit completely still and dead to the world.

A day before his passing, Brock had grabbed Jack by the shoulders and, in his sternest commander voice, asked him what caused the state he was in—a desperate shout of a desperate man looking for answers impossible to get. He had not expected to receive a conscious reaction, but this time Jack looked him in the eye with the scraps of sanity that shouldn’t have been in his possession anymore, and replied in a grave voice, “Cut off one head—” before returning to his hopeless multilingual babble.

The day Brock said his goodbyes to Jack in the morgue might have been the saddest in his life, but it brought him peace, too, to see him finally undisturbed by whatever horrors had been haunting his mind.

Brock had seen his share of horrors, first in the war, then in black ops, and those days, he could proudly say not many things made his hair stand on all ends, but one of those things was Ideal Federal Savings Bank. And he wasn't the only man whose face would twist in fear at the bare mention of it; his teammates, young people at most, whispered between themselves about the old agents found mumbling incoherently in the vaults underground and the same agents dying days after. Because everything that anyone ever told them were the official stories, stories that Brock could attest weren't at all true, they made up their own theories of what was happening in the maze of vaults-turned-laboratories, and whenever they were called down there to serve as security, Brock saw in their eyes that they were awaiting death.

But his teammates were as wrong in their assumptions as the official stories, as they believed the source of their older coworkers' doom was the thing that was kept in one of the vaults; the thing that, as the scientists working there said, once upon a time used to be human. Their skin would break in sweat whenever they attended the vault and surrounded the machine the thing was strapped in, and they avoided the thing's cold blue eyes and grasped their rifles tighter at the slightest move of its metal arm, but they wouldn't dare to pull the trigger until absolutely necessary, aware that the brass valued the thing more than they did any of their subordinates.

Brock had worked with and guarded the thing—the Asset, they called him—for a decade, and he knew it couldn't have caused his late friends to go insane. The worst the Asset could do was to kill, and Brock long ago stopped fearing death. Furthermore, he had noticed the same symptoms of losing sanity in the Asset; its tongue would mix languages it spoke, and it would become violent for no apparent reason. But every time it happened, it was put in the machine that treated it with shocks until it calmed down and was focused again, ready to comply.

Brock knew it wasn't the Asset that should be feared.

What he feared of was whatever made the marble floor of the Bank tremble and cover in slime. Once upon a time, when he was young and foolish enough to think asking questions was a good idea, he had learned the vibrations were caused by scientific machinery; as for his inquiries about the slime, he only got shrugs of shoulders in response until one time, maybe two years into his work with the Asset, early in the morning he had acquainted a janitor mopping the floor.

"Where is all this slime coming from?" he had asked as he watched it cling to his combat boots.

The janitor threw him a scolding look over his shoulder as if to let him know he should have known better than to ask. "Cut off one head—" he replied nonetheless and went back to work.

As Jack had been yet alive and well back then, Brock hadn't thought much of it—perhaps, he had concluded, the janitor wasn't very bright. He was, after all, only a janitor. But after the saddest day of his life, Brock had remembered that conversation and ever since he had connected the mysterious deaths of his men to the slime.

Another thing he wasn’t as much afraid of as it made him uncomfortable were the lonely nights at the barracks. It was where he was haunted by confusing vivid dreams. It was enough for him to lie down in his hard bed to see sparks under his eyelids and to feel something heavy settle on his chest, something cold and  _ slimy _ , and he’d wake up with a start every time, his hands absently rubbing at his body, trying to get rid of the nonexistent caustic substance soaking his top.

That night when he sat up in his bed, pulling off his undershirt that was soaked not with the slime but sweat, and looked up, his blood ran cold at the sight of the Asset standing still in his room, cold eyes watching him from above the half-face mask it was wearing. Seconds passed in silence before Brock realized the Asset didn’t come to kill him as he would be already dead if that was the case.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was alone,” the Asset replied.

Brock sat still for a moment before nodding. The Asset wasn’t supposed to be left alone, and somebody’s head would roll for leaving it unattended. It was Brock’s duty to report it, but looking at the clock revealed it was night still—his boss would hate to be woken up even for such a serious reason.

He scrambled out of bed and approached the Asset. The combat suit it was wearing looked uncomfortable, and Brock ordered it to strip. The Asset complied and peeled away its Kevlar jacket, vest, and shirt, and took off its boots. Brock helped it out of the mask, and it took in a deep breath, and then another. It nodded when Brock asked if it wanted to rest, and so they both lay down in bed, back to back, and though he was reluctant to fall asleep again, Brock eventually closed his eyes and his vision went bright from hot electricity surging through his head.

Once he blinked away the dark spots temporarily clouding his vision, he saw the Asset's face hanging above his own. It was holding his head, one hand warm and the other cold on his cheeks, and Brock mused on the duality of it. Suddenly he realized its hands weren't the only dual thing about it, because while he was staring into one pair of eyes, there was another right beside the first one. The Asset had two heads. Brock was given no time to wonder about it, to let it fully sink in, as one of the heads leaned in, and its mouth covered his own.

It was never something that was supposed to take place; definitely not something that was allowed, but one night, under the cover of the dark, it just happened and kept happening; Brock had no explanation for that but maybe loneliness and a desperation to kill it. What was driving the Asset though, he did not know. On the nights like that one, when he was on the verge of sleep and feeling unreal, he felt a kind of bond between them, and he supposed the Asset, being not a human but something higher, was accustomed to sense it all the time.

Getting lost in the kiss, Brock almost forgot about the second head, but the flesh and the metal both touching his skin at once kept reminding him; then he felt that second mouth kiss his untouched lips, and because his were already occupied, he realized with a jolt— _ he had a second head, too. _

The Asset was stronger than him, but somehow Brock managed to shove it off. He ran to the bathroom and punched the lights on. He leaned against the sink, clammy hands gripping the porcelain too tight, and his ragged breath clouded the mirror, but as he stared at it desperately, he could only see one pair of eyes.

As he stood there, catching his breath and watching his face, he realized that wasn't the first time he had a dream like this. He wasn't even sure if it was a dream, or if in his not quite awake state, he was becoming aware of things his common sense refused to consider true. He tensed when he heard footsteps outside—at least the Asset showing up in his room wasn't a dream.

The door opened and the Asset's face—only one—showed up above his shoulder in the mirror, and Brock heaved a sigh.

"What is wrong with me?" he asked, and though he didn't really expect an answer, the Asset parted its lips.

"Cut off one head—"

Brock turned on his heel, scowling, tired of hearing the same phrase over and over again that did nothing to clarify anything, and he was about to demand an explanation, but his voice died in his throat.

The Asset was dripping slime onto the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my first shot at lovecraftian, and it probably turned out bad :P Oh well, I still like it.

**Author's Note:**

> [An easy access to all the prompt lists and occasional ask games.](https://quillofchoice.tumblr.com/tagged/ask+me)


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